One of the basic jobs of the church – perhaps the most basic – is to help people better take after Jesus. And one way to do that is to observe how He lived – up close and personal. Today’s Gospel reading gives us a glimpse into a regular day in the life of Jesus from which we not only get a closer look at how Jesus lived, but also, if we have a mind to, from which we can pick up pointers for our own lives as we try to follow Him. Mark has Jesus in Capernaum. And why not, it wouldn't have been at all uncommon for Jesus to be in that town. After all, that's where Jesus' closest followers lived -- Peter and Andrew. In fact, Matthew mentions that Jesus moved there from Nazareth after John the Baptist had been arrested. That’s where Jesus lived when He wasn’t on the road. He may well even have had a house in that town. Like Wickford, Capernaum was a pleasant fishing community. It was situated on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee with the silhouette of Mount Hermon as a backdrop, some 40-miles to the north.

Mark tells us that this particular day in the life of Jesus was the Sabbath. And so the story begins with Jesus exiting the local synagogue. Jesus had just spent the morning, there, with his friends and other townspeople -- worshipping, reading scripture and praying. Lots of folks in our time seem to feel that regular participation in public worship is unnecessary -- that either communing with God alone or in small faith groups is sufficient for their spiritual nutrition. But Jesus spent at least part of one day every week at the synagogue and often other days too. You know Jews had small groups for fellowship, study and prayer back in Jesus' time. They were called chabura meals. Like our own WNL, they gathered for dinner, sang hymns, spoke of God and how to live their faith, and prayed. But they also faithfully attended synagogue and often began their days there -- reading scripture and praying. That's what Jesus did. He spent time there as we might spend time, here, at church. He went there with His friends or dragged them with Him as we might. Worship -- regular public worship, as well as study, teaching, prayer and fellowship in a small group -- were extremely important to Jesus. As close as He was to His Heavenly Father, those disciplines strengthened Him spiritually. Can any of us be so close to God that we would need them less?

The next thing on Jesus' agenda for that day was lunch. He went over to Peter's house to eat. I get the sense that Jesus knew how to fast. After all, He spent all that time in the wilderness. But I also get the impression that He loved to eat. One of the criticisms that the religious leaders leveled against Jesus was that He encouraged His disciples to be gluttons or drunkards. Suffice it to say that Jesus didn't neglect His bodily needs. He enjoyed eating. He also used occasions for eating with friends and visitors as a regular opportunity for fellowship and engaged them over meals in conversations about God and how God wanted them to live. Martin Luther was famous for his "table talks", but Jesus was way before that. And as I've said that was a custom for Jewish men at chabura meals. But Jesus had a tendency to turn every meal into a chabura -- as an occasion to talk about God and pray. Did you know that recent studies have shown that the single-most influential element in people's adult spiritual formation is whether, growing up, they were exposed to family prayer, discussion about God and faith, or other spiritual practices? Jesus did that all the time.

When they got to Peter's house there was a problem, though. Peter’s mother-in-law was sick in bed with a fever. That’s right, St. Peter had a mother-in-law, and I sure hope that he had a wife to show for it. Now, Jesus could simply have ignored her indisposition or conveyed His earnest concern for her health. But that didn't seem to be Jesus' way. Instead, He did something about it. As Mark mentions it, Jesus went to her bedroom, took her by the hand, and healed her. Some of us -- either by medical training or gift -- may have the ability help remedy an illness, but none of us has the ability that Jesus did to heal. But that shouldn’t stop us from expressing concern for those who are ill in the course of our daily lives. It shouldn't stop us from putting our concerns into action by visiting those who have some difficulty -- whether illness or some other challenge, keeping them company, enjoying who they are, or offering to help and to pray with them. Miracles of all unexpected sorts can happen when we take the time to put our concerns into action as Jesus invariably did.

After that, Jesus ate, and relaxed with His friends. Taking time to rest and simply relax with friends or family was important to Jesus – as it can be for us as well. Jesus lived by God’s Commandments. That mattered deeply to Him. His highest priority was to live His life according to God’s guidelines. One of those Commandments, probably the most pleasant and yet, also, one of the hardest for us to practice, is Sabbath, which was synonymous with rest. Jesus relaxed. Meanwhile, though, the message got around the neighborhood that Jesus had healed Peter's mother-in-law. And so, once the sun set and the Sabbath was over, people started to come out of the woodwork to drop by Peter's house -- bringing their sick and disturbed friends and relations with them. Jesus' active concern for those in need was infectious, and so others put their concern into action by going out of their way to do something to help those who seemed to need it. So Jesus spent the evening spreading that concern around. Who knows? Perhaps He'd have preferred to go to bed or perhaps that's exactly what He wanted. But even if He was enjoying down time, He put His own comfort aside, and shifted gears -- meeting people, talking with them about their deepest concerns and needs, praying with them, telling them about God's love and God's power, and doing something to help them. At the end of the day, perhaps exhausted -- I know that I would have been -- Jesus hit the sack. Yes, Jesus ate when He was hungry, relaxed with friends when He was able, went to the bathroom when He had to, and slept when He was tired. We know that He went to bed because Mark mentions the detail that He got up early that morning.

This is probably the most challenging idea for me -- never having been a morning person myself. Mark let's us know that Jesus got up from sleep early the next morning, went outdoors to a remote place and prayed -- before sunrise. The point is that Jesus spent time alone in prayer. I say in prayer instead of praying because Jesus spent a long time talking to God alone. It was long enough that it extended from before any one else was awake through their rising, eating, looking for Him and forming a search party to hunt for Him. That's a quite a while. Jesus often prayed. He needed to connect with God, consciously, for extended periods of time. Who knows what He prayed about? But it probably had something to do with the things He taught His disciples in the Lord's Prayer. And I don't mean that He recited that prayer dozens of times. Jesus talked with God and listened too. Private prayer was integral to His life and it’s meant to be for us as well. It is helpful for us to push beyond our comfort zones in our conversations with God – beyond our restlessness. When we run out of things to say it helps to listen or plumb the depths of our own mind and spirit with God. Otherwise we tend to stop when prayer just begins to get boring or uncomfortable. I suspect that part of Jesus' prayer was to ask God what He should do or where He should go next. I say that because the very next thing that happened, after His friends found Him was that He told them it was time to move on – to tell others about God, because that was why He came. I think Jesus was praying for discernment about what God wanted Him to do next. Jesus always tried to put God first. He was always ready to take His nose from the grindstone of what He was doing to scan the horizon for what God wanted Him to do next. Otherwise, Jesus would simply have let Himself get bogged down. Each day would have been dictated by the day before rather than by God's guidance. And that's something we could stand to learn – to follow God’s lead.